


Their Personal History with Fire

by Knitzkampf



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars: Episode V The Empire Strikes Back
Genre: Attraction, Developing Relationship, F/M, Fire, Hoth, Memories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-18 04:01:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29362164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Knitzkampf/pseuds/Knitzkampf
Summary: One finds the world they live in a little too cold, the other fears how fast it burns. Two part Han-Leia, on Hoth.
Relationships: Leia Organa & Han Solo, Leia Organa/Han Solo
Comments: 3
Kudos: 20





	1. Chapter 1

It was the cold that brought back the memory of fire.

A useless memory here; there wasn't anything to burn.

And how his body felt before building the fire. That was the bad part of the memory, the way the cold took away the ability to fend for himself. Feet he couldn't walk on; things slipping out of his fingers.

Useless to remember, but nevertheless as he looked across the hangar, at all the duroplast and durosteel, he thought of how they used to scrounge for anything to burn. They overturned bins, brought back discarded boxes from meals they weren't meant to eat. But in the cold, the hunger wasn't as urgent.

Once he found some wood. A chair with a broken back slat. You learned what they ate for dinner, looking through their trash, but you didn't see inside their homes; curtains thick and a yellow glow coming from within, like the whole interior was a kindly flame.

Chairs didn't break themselves, you know. _They_ did it. And then they didn't want it anymore. In an odd way, it had been reassuring to know they treated everything the same.

He was king of the fire that night. They wanted to take the chair from him, but he held on, kicking at them and even swinging it at them. He put it on top of the boxes and leaves they managed to gather and stood back to watch.

The ink of the boxes and the grime and dampness of the leaves made for a smokey, acrid fire, but the smell was satisfying, the memory of it in his nostrils even now as he stood steps away from the ramp of his ship, ready to turn back and leave at the slightest provocation.

The smoke concealed who else was attending the fire, and you could dream in it. And the smell- it was something new, something original.

It took forever for the chair to catch. He was afraid it wouldn't. He was afraid it was all a lie. But then, at last, the submission to flame.

The smoke acted funny. Instead of looking like a cloud come down to earth, sky for a bunch of kids, it gathered. Grew thick and substantial. Curled. Like human hair, so pretty.

And when it caught, it was _real_ fire, orange and yellow and white, and clear. No smoke around it, just chair leg. Wood-brown, four-sided, growing browner and browner until it was glowing red inside. The others across the fire spot weren't concealed by smoke but it was hard to look at them; they were yellow and red and hot to the eyes, so hot they seemed to melt, transformed into ribbony, wavy beings.

He didn't leave the fire-side of his chair until it was all burnt up. Guarded it. Some of the others visited it during the day, adding more leaves or flimsiboard to make it last. And he stood real close, letting his feet enjoy the sensation of too hot, about as painful as too cold, but it was fleeting so he could take it.

And then the wood lost its red glow; turned gray and fragile and barely warmed his hands anymore. Someone gave the fire a kick, and the legs of his chair, which were still recognizable, fell into a heap of gray and cold ashes.

He set on the kid, because that's what you did on the streets, the loss of warmth turned memory, and his fury kept him warm for a while.

He blinked, the memory finished, and wondered why he'd had it. People came into his focus now; the incidental details, the texture of memory. Dressed warmly, sure. He half-turned toward his ship. He had a parka somewhere in there. The people were milling about, none of them idle. They had work to keep them warm. Everyone looked overweight in their puffy coats and pants. Hats and gloves, and facial scarves concealed how he might have known them.

He sent his eyes around, noticing rank, observing duty. And then, finally, like the first licks of flame, he saw her. Activity swirled around her. Her hair was rich, tree-brown; delicate wisps curled at her cheeks, framing porcelain skin. The blush of pink below the surface of her lids, her cheeks, her lips, enticed him to come closer.

He sauntered up to her, and she almost smiled at him, like pulling a curtain aside. "Welcome, Captain. I'm glad you arrived safely."

"Hey, Your Radiance. Care to warm my hands for me?"

She _tsked_ , and a flush covered her cheeks.

All these years, he was still building fires.


	2. Chapter 2

It was the cold that brought back the memory of the fire.

She listened to it, and made precautions.

They were sheltered inside a hollowed-out mountain, an ice cavern. Occupation by a large number of warm-bodied beings and operation of large pieces of equipment gave rise to concerns of thawing and collapse, and it was she who had issued the order: no methods of climate control were permitted, under any circumstance.

There was a list. No heaters (fuel or electric), sonic dryers, electric blankets, portable stoves, mug warmers, candles, flints, or sparkers. Use of nico sticks was forbidden. The Alliance would supply smokers with a nico chew or patch.

General Rieekan had scratched his cheek. "I don't know, Your Highness. No smoking? Can't they do it outside?"

"This climate is dangerous, General. And, in a place like this, their seemingly innocent sparker will be used for more than lighting a nico stick. I won't risk it."

She knew a lot about fire. It wasn't so much what burned, but that there was a fuel source. The atmosphere of Hoth was oxygen-rich. Higher, even, than Alderaan's atmospheric content.

Yes, she knew about fire. It had existed on Alderaan. It was tended, small and friendly, in a home's hearth. It was a service, savory-smelling, in restaurants specializing in fire-roasted cooking, and in mortuaries it handled the dead. Bonfires blazed on beaches, voices raised in song over the crackling flames.

But after thousands of years of domestication fire was still wild.

Even here, it could happen. The landscape was crystalline and white. It had a stark beauty; featureless almost, except for low countryside that undulated in a familiar way. These were hills of ice, eons of strata of snowfall upon snowfall, hardening to an almost marble, never melting.

Her homeworld had also been beautiful. Not so harsh but full of color, and in the far distance there were rolling hills that sharpened into craggy mountains.

Of all the things she could remember, the simple countless details of a life that could never be again, her thoughts were drawn to one warm summer's night. The crowds on the green lawn, the music, the fireworks that lit the sky in a spectacular arrangement of chemistry and art. How they _oohed_ , how they sang, how they danced around a great bonfire, hands clasped, friends for a time.

And how, on a wind, fire acted. A cinder left them; she pictured it drifting lazily in the air. Somehow it landed upon centuries of layers of leaf and dirt, and then the breeze, like a goddess's breath, brought it back to life, hot and red. While they danced and sang and banished all menace from their world, a distant forest caught fire. Because of them.

They hadn't noticed at first. Their celebration continued into the night, until the plume of smoke was visible; a taller mountain of gray in the black sky. And as the fire spread, from where they watched the horizon glowed orange, like a sun trying to rise too early. From miles away, she could see flames flicker, shadows moving inside the glow. While their own fires died and they stood transfixed, the distant blaze had a life of its own. Despite the warmth from the dying embers, gooseflesh rose on her skin and she shivered.

She stood now as she had then, cold. Outside, ships were directed to make their landings. Once the engines cooled they would be towed inside. Gradually, the hangar filled, fighters and freighters. Pilots jumped out and checked in, carts trundled past with supplies.

She didn't want to look for him, but she knew she would. Maybe he hadn't come. He is that cinder, drifted to her on a wind. Maybe he landed somewhere else, and set off a different chain of events.

But of course he is easy to spot, the fire-red strip of cloth descending the ramp of his familiar ship catching her attention. Recognition brightened his face, his eyes like sun on snow.

His head was bare, his hands unprotected, and as he sidled next to her she could feel her body take his heat. She had long suspected she was a fuel, and it was a little frightening.

He said something, trying to spark a reaction as he always did, and she understood why she thought of that long ago forest fire.

She _tsked_ , and her cheeks burned a little. Ice could cool a fire, she thought. "But can you handle the heat, Captain?"

She had seen a fire consume everything in its path, but she had taken precautions.


End file.
